Tyler Loop’s breakout week started with a kick and ended with hardware.
The Ravens kicker was named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week after drilling the game-winning 56-yard field goal as time expired in Rio de Janeiro, pushing Baltimore past the Dallas Cowboys 34-31 in the first-ever regular-season game in Brazil. It was Loop’s first career Player of the Week award, and the kind of moment that can change the way a team sees its kicker.
Loop’s night was clean from start to finish. He converted both of his field goal tries, from 27 and 56 yards, and added all four extra points. The 56-yarder came with the clock at zero, and Loop capped it off with Christiano Ronaldo’s “SIUUU.”
The kick also carried some extra weight for Baltimore. It was the Ravens’ first game-winning field goal in regulation since Justin Tucker’s 43-yarder beat the Cincinnati Bengals at the buzzer in October 2022. And for Loop personally, it came after a rocky stretch that put his job under the microscope.
He entered this season with pressure hanging over him after a season-ending miss against the Steelers in January. His preseason struggles led the Ravens to bring in competition late in training camp. But in Week 1, the 2025 sixth-round pick answered with a perfect seven-for-seven performance, including a career-long 57-yard field goal, and then followed it with the biggest kick of his young NFL life.
That’s the version of Loop the Ravens were hoping to see when they drafted him. As a rookie, he went 30-for-34 on field goals and 44-for-46 on extra points. He also made just one of four attempts from 50 yards and beyond in 2025, though he’s now hit both of those kicks this year.
The award puts Loop in select company in Baltimore. He’s the third Ravens kicker to win AFC Special Teams Player of the Week, joining Justin Tucker, who won it 12 times, and Matt Stover, who won it six times. He’s also the first Ravens player to take home the honor since 2021, and the second former Arizona kicker to do it, alongside Nick Folk.
The Ravens’ win over Dallas also sparked a bigger conversation about whether their late-game issues are finally behind them. CBS Sports framed the question as overreaction or reality and landed on reality, pointing to Baltimore’s recent history of collapses. Over the past five years, the Ravens have blown 10 double-digit, second-half leads, most in the NFL by far.
This one looked like it might become No. 11 after the Ravens stumbled the week before against the Saints. But Lamar Jackson helped steer them out of trouble.
He said, “Not again.” Then he completed 20 of 26 passes for 186 yards and two touchdowns, while adding 50 rushing yards.
When Baltimore needed a finish, Jackson kept delivering.
For Derrick Henry, Week 4 brings a different kind of spotlight. The Ravens running back is set to face the Titans for the first time in his career, and he didn’t hide how strange that feels.
“It’s going to be a crazy moment to be playing against the team that I came in the league playing for,” Henry said. “But I ain’t trying to make too much of it, though.
Henry signed a two-year, $16 million deal with Baltimore in March 2024, after Tennessee had already agreed to a three-year, $21.75 million contract with Tony Pollard. On Wednesday, Henry said the Titans never made an effort to keep him in free agency.
“They shipped me out,” Henry initially said, before adding, “I don’t want to say it like that. It’s always love.”
When asked how it felt not to get an offer from Tennessee, Henry called it “bittersweet.” He said he could see where things were headed during that season and understood the Titans were ready to move on.
“Good things don’t last forever. So it was time for me to find a new home and I knew what that home I wanted it to be and it was here.”
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